212

Shattered Glass

 Sarah

BANG!

It happened so fast. In the skip of a heartbeat. In the blink of an eye. Normal life one minute, and the next...

Screeching tires and shattered glass.

The seatbelt snaps. The world rolls over on itself.

Sky. Grass. Sky. Tires. Shattered glass. Sky. Time passes. Seconds tick in an endless stream, slowed to a crawl in my mind's eye by the sting of adrenaline in my veins. Sky. Grass. Tires. Shattered glass.

BANG-BANG-BANG! And then...

Residual chaos echoes in my ear: the hiss of a broken engine; the slow, needling grind of metal chewing at thick rubber; the angry growl of electricity under high voltage as it leaps from broken transmitters. The car's horns scream in perfect rhythm with its flashing lights. Straight ahead, beyond the reach of the car's flashing lights, lies the murky darkness beyond the empty space that used to be a windshield. Clumps of grass and muck cling to the ceiling inside my old Tesla like intrepid explorers defying the laws of gravity even in the face of the abyss looming ahead.

Breathe. I tell myself as the universe settles back into the rhythm of normal. My limbs slowly become aware of their awkward positions, of my left leg pinned and my arm twisted badly beneath the crush of metal. I dangle just above the steering wheel, held in place by sheer luck and that stubborn seatbelt.

Breathe. I tell myself over the high-pitched rattle in my ear. Adrenaline, pure and sweet, thrums through my veins and my heart hiccups from the flood of it. As the car slowly ticks and grinds its way back to normality, my brain tries to take stock of what the fuck just happened.

The last thing I remembered was rows of billboards and gaudy buildings zipping by, the occasional glare of headlights from oncoming traffic, and the sickly amber hues of the streetlights that molested the moonlit horizon stretching out before me. Every now and then, wisps of fog had rolled in from the Patom River as it slices its way alongside the main road; the fog had momentarily cut my field of vision, but my windshield's holographic display showed the way easily enough. Water-soaked streets had groaned under the weight of my tires, and the air had been pregnant with the smell of more winter rains to come. Even in mid-December, the temperature had stubbornly refused to drop low enough for a White Christmas. Instead, the waterlogged cold just hovered above us all, as looming as the darkness outside because the weather isn't the same anymore, not like how it used to be when I was a child. Summers are cold now, winters hot, and the oceans are on a valiant quest to greedily eat up more of the planet's landmass.

I remember...white-knuckling the steering wheel and screaming profanities at the lingering memory of Andrew. Can't believe that son-of-a-bitch hung up on me! After the underhanded shit he'd just pulled, did he really have the nerve to hang up on me?

"Call Andrew," I'd yelled at Komo.

"Navigation activated."

"CALL ANDREW!"

"Navigation activated."

Stupid AI. In this blessed year of 2083, the damn tech companies still can't make a NavSys that fucking works!

"CALL ANDREW, you bitch!"

"Would you like me to email that report?"

"No-no-no! Stupid...fucking...NO!"

I'd only taken my eyes off the road for a second. One... lousy...second.

Something popped up in the middle of the dark road.